Flyer calling for a community meeting at Calvary United Methodist Church

I easily found a blog from 2009 reporting a cheery event for people of Nordic-European descent (white people). Now, the postings about the event are like a frightening Edda of ethnic cleansing, with lots of mystic-sounding language about preservation of culture and intrinsic qualities of bloodline. The event itself seems to be a place where people who are generally white and generally disposed to ignorant superiority over people of color/unknown creed/people who wear funny hats that aren’t Christian can feel welcome to wave whatever flag while bleating whatever slack-jawed corruption of morality they see fit.

Photo of 2009 Celebration, via Leif Erikson Day bog

From claiming North America for the vanilla Europeans via Leif Ericson to the bastardized Norse ethic which has our hero battle-bound for Bigot’s Valhalla, the event’s chroniclers and their perspective, at least, serve as punctuated evidence that their constituency has plenty of power as it is, thank you. An excerpt:

We owe a debt of gratitude and respect to Leif Erikson and his crew for their sacrifice and ultimate discovery of this continent for Europeans.

…..We know that there is an attempt by those in power to diminish and denigrate the European achievements in all fields of endeavor: science, philosophy, the arts and most of all, history.

We know that in many European societies, even here in the North America, our children are being taught that their history and culture are not only no longer relevant and something to be ashamed of.

This is clearly a great threat to our people, because, as some great historical philosophers have pointed out, “A people robbed of their history cannot survive as a people.” This brings us to the second important reason for studying history. Our duty to the Future. The history of our people provides us with examples and lessons that we must re-learn ourselves and teach to our children so that we and they may meet the challenges that our own age and future ages may throw before us.

Today, even the most complacent among us are beginning to realize that things are beginning to fall apart.That the dust clouds and hoof-beats of history are about to descend into our valley and reek havoc, just like the Mongols did in the 1200‘s.…We have allowed some among us to turn against their own culture.

We have allowed them to gain power and pilot our ship toward the whirlpool of self-destruction. Our own elected leaders have other interests in mind when they make their decisions on the economy, war and peace and social issues. We must relearn how to fight, how to face and overcome these challenges. Those lessons are in our past, in our blood. That is where the tales of our heroes, and their adventures, of our Gods and their myths will come and play their part.They will teach us again how to live, how to fight, how to face fear and uncertainty, how to triumph.

Let me take you back to an afternoon, such as this, over one thousand years ago. To a dock in Iceland. The long ship was being provisioned and loaded. The crew were saying farewell to their wives and children, maybe for the last time.

GROSS. So yeah, this will be polluting your City of Brotherly Love soon, take measures.

Its that time of year again. Every October for several years the “White Nationalist” Nazis of the Keystone State Skinheads (KSS) have held their “Leif Ericson Day Celebration” in Philly’s Fairmount Park. KSS has been in decline in recent years but have been attempting a resurgence. KSS memorializes the “first European to land in America” because they feel it justifies their ludicrous claims that the US is a “white nation” belonging only to people of “pure” European Descent. And like almost all of those several years, Antifascists in the region are mobilizing to confront them.

The Wikipedia page on the group gives a brief history of reported violence

In June 2002, KSS members, Robert Gaus, Douglas Sonier and Joseph Hoesch, were arrested by police outside the Suburban Diner in Feasterville, near Philadelphia, for assaulting a man who asked them to stop throwing food at his table. The victim was struck several times and left on the diner’s floor. All three pleaded guilty to a charge of simple assault and were given suspended sentences.[6]

In September 2002, KSS members, Todd Sager, Jason Hayden, and Christopher Keough, beat a former member, Christopher Morosko, who refused to return his KSS “colors”. The three pleaded guilty to assault on March 3, 2003, and were all released for time served.[6]

On March 23, 2003, three members of KSS, Keith Carney, Steve Smith and Steve Monteforte, were arrested on ethnic intimidation charges in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for assaulting an African-American man who, according to police, was walking home in the early morning.[8]

In April 2003, two associates of the Lancaster Keystone State Skinheads were arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation and terroristic threats for making racist and threatening comments to three black patrons in a Lancaster-area bar.[6]

In January 2006, KSS members, Edward Robert Locke and Todd Clair Sager, were charged with multiple counts in connection with a violent bar fight in March 2005 in New Stanton. Police claim Locke stabbed two men. Locke was charged with attempted homicide and four counts of aggravated assault, while Sager was charged with criminal solicitation to commit homicide and criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault.[6]

On January 7, 2006, Jason R. Honeywell, a member of KSS, was charged with stabbing two men outside Café Metropolis. Witnesses said a small group of KSS members, including Honeywell, began making Nazi hand signals during a performance by the band River Side Riot, whose lead singer, Mike Lungs, is black. Honeywell was arraigned on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006 for stabbing the men.[9]

In January 2007, KSS members, Kenneth Hoover and Charles Marovskis, were arrested for beating and killing two homeless men to death in Tampa, Florida in 1998. Kenneth Hoover pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and racketeering. Charles Marovskis, 29, recently from West Pittston, Pennsylvania, but originally from Tampa, Florida, pleaded guilty to two federal charges of second-degree murder.[6]

On May 26, 2007, Keith Carney was charged with a series of weapons and assault charges stemming from an incident that reportedly involved him and two other persons beating up on an alleged KSS associate.[10][11]

On September 7, 2008, Philadelphia police officers arrested Keystone State Skinhead Andrew Boyle at a Philadelphia bar for being in possession of a knife. A summary trial is scheduled for December 1, 2008. At the time of his arrest, Boyle was out on bail awaiting trial on another matter. Boyle, along with co-defendants and fellow Keystone State Skinheads Keith Carney and Doug Caffarella, and Atlantic City Skinhead Vincent DeFelice, are charged with assault and conspiracy in the alleged attack of another skinhead outside of a Philadelphia bar in 2007. DeFelice is currently incarcerated in New Jersey on an unrelated matter, but the trial against Boyle, Carney and Caffarella is scheduled for late November 2008.[6]

Like this:

Related

About Kenneth Lipp

Kenneth is a writer and researcher. He’s from Alabama, and will not apologize for it. He moved to Pennsylvania in 2012, but has been in love with Philadelphia since a late-night stroll down Ben Franklin Parkway to the Art Museum in July of 2011 with the love of his life. He is interested in telling Philadelphia’s dynamic and absolutely unique stories with the zeal of a constantly enamored newcomer. Kenneth is also passionate about government transparency and protection of whistleblowers, most notably PFC Chelsea Manning. His research and reporting on law enforcement and surveillance have been featured in various publications, including Rolling Stone (Meet the Private Companies Helping Cops Spy on Protesters) and Popular Science (Boston Tested Crowd-Watching Software That Catalogues People's Skin Color). His training is in both genetics and history and he likes the joke about being a helicase and unzipping your “genes.” He’s driven to know, and thinks you can handle, the truth. Follow him on Twitter @kennethlipp.
View all posts by Kenneth Lipp →

[…] activist, Kyle Prouty, has announced a creative counter-protest in response to the upcoming annual “Leif Erikson Day Celebration” to be held for its seventh year in Fairmount Park by white-supremacists, Neo-Nazis and affiliated […]